The present invention relates to an apparatus and a method for examining a value document, in particular a value document having a security element whose optical properties are influenceable by a magnetic field.
In this context, value documents are understood to mean sheet-shaped objects, which represent for example a monetary value or an authorization and thus shall not be manufacturable at will by unauthorized persons. They hence have features that are not simple to manufacture, in particular to copy, whose presence is an indication of authenticity, i.e. of manufacture by an authorized body. Important examples of such value documents are coupons, vouchers, checks and in particular bank notes. Value documents can have certain value document types. In particular, value documents in the form of banks notes can have a value document type which can be given by the currency, the denomination, or the value and, where applicable, the issue of the bank note.
Such value documents can have security elements which can be easily checked by a person without complicated examination devices. An example of such security elements are security elements whose optical properties are influenceable by a magnetic field. If a person moves a permanent magnet over the security element, he can perceive a respective change of the optical properties.
To enable a check of large amounts of value documents for their quality, state and/or authenticity, apparatuses for accepting or processing value documents are employed, in which the accepted or processed value documents are checked by machine and further treated according to the result of the machine check.